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01 The Language of Music
A painter hangs his or her finished pictures on a wall, and everyone can
see it. A composer writes a work, but no one can hear it until it is
perFORMed. Professional singers and players have great responsibilities,
for the composer is utterly dependent on them. A student of music needs
as long and as arduous a training to become a perFORMer as a medical
student needs to become a doctor. Most training is concerned with
technique, for musicians have to have the muscular proficiency of an
athlete or a ballet dancer. Singers practice breathing every day, as
their vocal chords would be inadequate without controlled muscular
support. String players practice moving the fingers of the left hand up
and down, while drawing the bow to and fro with the right arm-two
entirely different movements.
Singers and instruments have to be able to get every note perfectly in
tune. Pianists are spared this particular anxiety, for the notes are
already there, waiting for them, and it is the piano tuner’s
responsibility to tune the instrument for them. But they have their own
difficulties;the hammers that hit the string have to be coaxed not to
sound like percussion, and each overlapping tone has to sound clear.
This problem of getting clear texture is one that confronts student
conductors: they have to learn to know every note of the music and how
it should sound, and they have to aim at controlling these sound with
fanatical but selfless authority.
Technique is of no use unless it is combined with musical knowledge and
understanding. Great artists are those who are so thoroughly at home in
the language of music that they can enjoy perFORMing works written in
any century.
02 Schooling and Education
It is commonly believed in United States that school is where people go
to get an education. Nevertheless, it has been said that today children
interrupt their education to go to school. The distinction between
schooling and education implied by this remark is important.
Education is much more open-ended and all-inclusive than schooling.
Education knows no bounds. It can take place anywhere, whether in the
shower or in the job, whether in a kitchen or on a tractor. It includes
both theFORMal learning that takes place in schools and the whole
universe of inFORMal learning. The agents of education can range from a
revered grandparent to the people debating politics on the radio, from a
child to a distinguished scientist. Whereas schooling has a certain
predictability, education quite often produces surprises. A chance
conversation with a stranger may lead a person to discover how little is
known of other religions. People are engaged in education from infancy
on. Education, then, is a very broad, inclusive term. It is a lifelong
process, a process that starts long before the start of school, and one
that should be an integral part of one’s entire life.
Schooling, on the other hand, is a specific,FORMalized process, whose
general pattern varies little from one setting to the next. Throughout a
country, children arrive at school at approximately the same time, take
assigned seats, are taught by an adult, use similar textbooks, do
homework, take exams, and so on. The slices of reality that are to be
learned, whether they are the alphabet or an understanding of the
working of government, have usually been limited by the boundaries of
the subject being taught. For example, high school students know that
there not likely to find out in their classes the truth about political
problems in their communities or what the newest filmmakers are
experimenting with. There are definite conditions surrounding the
FORMalized process of schooling.
03 The Definition of “Price”
Prices determine how resources are to be used. They are also the means
by which products and services that are in limited supply are rationed
among buyers. The price system of the United States is a complex network
composed of the prices of all the products bought and sold in the
economy as well as those of a myriad of services, including labor,
professional, transportation, and public-utility services. The
interrelationships of all these prices make up the “system” of prices.
The price of any particular product or service is linked to a broad,
complicated system of prices in which everything seems to depend more or
less upon everything else.
If one were to ask a group of randomly selected individuals to define
“price”, many would reply that price is an amount of money paid by the
buyer to the seller of a product or service or, in other words that
price is the moneyvalues of a product or service as agreed upon in a
market transaction. This definition is, of course, valid as far as it
goes. For a complete understanding of a price in any particular
transaction, much more than the amount of money involved must be known.
Both the buyer and the seller should be familiar with not only the money
amount, but with the amount and quality of the product or service to be
exchanged, the time and place at which the exchange will take place and
payment will be made, theFORM of money to be used, the credit terms and
discounts that apply to the transaction, guarantees on the product or
service, delivery terms, return privileges, and other factors. In other
words, both buyer and seller should be fully aware of all the factors
that comprise the total “package” being exchanged for the asked-for
amount of money in order that they may evaluate a given price.
04 Electricity
The modern age is an age of electricity. People are so used to electric
lights, radio, televisions, and telephones that it is hard to imagine
what life would be like without them. When there is a power failure,
people grope about in flickering candlelight, cars hesitate in the
streets because there are no traffic lights to guide them, and food
spoils in silent refrigerators.
Yet, people began to understand how electricity works only a little more
than two centuries ago. Nature has apparently been experimenting in this
field for million of years. Scientists are discovering more and more
that the living world may hold many interesting secrets of electricity
that could benefit humanity.
All living cell send out tiny pulses of electricity. As the heart beats,
it sends out pulses of record;theyFORM an electrocardiogram, which a
doctor can study to determine how well the heart is working. The brain,
too, sends out brain waves of electricity, which can be recorded in an
electroencephalogram. The electric currents generated by most living
cells are extremely small - often so small that sensitive instruments
are needed to record them. But in some animals, certain muscle cells
have become so specialized as electrical generators that they do not
work as muscle cells at all. When large numbers of these cell are linked
together, the effects can be astonishing.
The electric eel is an amazing storage battery. It can seed a jolt of as
much as eight hundred volts of electricity through the water in which it
live. ( An electric house current is only one hundred twenty volts.) As
many as four-fifths of all the cells in the electric eel’s body are
specialized for generating electricity, and the strength of the shock it
can deliver corresponds roughly to length of its body.
05 The Beginning of Drama
There are many theories about the beginning of drama in ancient Greece.
The on most widely accepted today is based on the assumption that drama
evolved from ritual. The argument for this view goes as follows. In the
beginning, human beings viewed the natural forces of the world-even the
seasonal changes-as unpredictable, and they sought through various means
to control these unknown and feared powers. Those measures which
appeared to bring the desired results were then retained and repeated
until they hardened into fixed rituals. Eventually stories arose which
explained or veiled the mysteries of the rites. As time passed some
rituals were abandoned, but the stories, later called myths, persisted
and provided material for art and drama.
Those who believe that drama evolved out of ritual also argue that those
rites contained the seed of theater because music, dance, masks, and
costumes were almost always used, Furthermore, a suitable site had to be
provided for perFORMances and when the entire community did not
participate, a clear division was usually made between the "acting area"
and the "auditorium." In addition, there were perFORMers, and, since
considerable importance was attached to avoiding mistakes in the
enactment of rites, religious leaders usually assumed that task. Wearing
masks and costumes, they often impersonated other people, animals, or
supernatural beings, and mimed the desired effect-success in hunt or
battle, the coming rain, the revival of the Sun-as an actor might.
Eventually such dramatic representations were separated from religious
activities.
Another theory traces the theater's origin from the human interest in
storytelling. According to this vies tales (about the hunt, war, or
other feats) are gradually elaborated, at first through the use of
impersonation, action, and dialogue by a narrator and then through the
assumption of each of the roles by a different person. A closely related
theory traces theater to those dances that are primarily rhythmical and
gymnastic or that are imitations of animal movements and sounds.
06 Television
Television-----the most pervasive and persuasive of modern technologies,
marked by rapid change and growth-is moving into a new era, an era of
extraordinary sophistication and versatility, which promises to reshape
our lives and our world. It is an electronic revolution of sorts, made
possible by the marriage of television and computer technologies.
The word "television", derived from its Greek (tele: distant) and Latin
(visio: sight) roots, can literally be interpreted as sight from a
distance. Very simply put, it works in this way: through a sophisticated
system of electronics, television provides the capability of converting
an image (focused on a special photoconductive plate within a camera)
into electronic impulses, which can be sent through a wire or cable.
These impulses, when fed into a receiver (television set), can then be
electronically reconstituted into that same image.
Television is more than just an electronic system, however. It is a
means of expression, as well as a vehicle for communication, and as such
becomes a powerful tool for reaching other human beings.
The field of television can be divided into two categories determined by
its means of transmission. First, there is broadcast television, which
reaches the masses through broad-based airwave transmission of
television signals. Second, there is nonbroadcast television, which
provides for the needs of individuals or specific interest groups
through controlled transmission techniques.
Traditionally, television has been a medium of the masses. We are most
familiar with broadcast television because it has been with us for about
thirty-seven years in aFORM similar to what exists today. During those
years, it has been controlled, for the most part, by the broadcast
networks, ABC, NBC, and CBS, who have been the major purveyors of news,
inFORMation, and entertainment. These giants of broadcasting have
actually shaped not only television but our perception of it as well. We
have come to look upon the picture tube as a source of entertainment,
placing our role in this dynamic medium as the passive viewer.
07 Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie, known as the King of Steel, built the steel industry in
the United States, and , in the process, became one of the wealthiest
men in America. His success resulted in part from his ability to sell
the product and in part from his policy of expanding during periods of
economic decline, when most of his competitors were reducing their
investments.
Carnegie believed that individuals should progress through hard work,
but he also felt strongly that the wealthy should use their fortunes for
the benefit of society. He opposed charity, preferring instead to
provide educational opportunities that would allow others to help
themselves. "He who dies rich, dies disgraced," he often said.
Among his more noteworthy contributions to society are those that bear
his name, including the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh, which has a
library, a museum of fine arts, and a museum of national history. He
also founded a school of technology that is now part of Carnegie-Mellon
University. Other philanthrophic gifts are the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace to promote understanding between nations, the
Carnegie Institute of Washington to fund scientific research, and
Carnegie Hall to provide a center for the arts.
Few Americans have been left untouched by Andrew Carnegie's generosity.
His contributions of more than five million dollars established 2,500
libraries in small communities throughout the country andFORMed the
nucleus of the public library system that we all enjoy today.
08 American Revolution
The American Revolution was not a sudden and violent overturning of the
political and social framework, such as later occurred in France and
Russia, when both were already independent nations. Significant changes
were ushered in, but they were not breathtaking. What happened was
accelerated evolution rather than outright revolution. During the
conflict itself people went on working and praying, marrying and
playing. Most of them were not seriously disturbed by the actual
fighting, and many of the more isolated communities scarcely knew that a
war was on.
America's War of Independence heralded the birth of three modern
nations. One was Canada, which received its first large influx of
English-speaking population from the thousands of loyalists who fled
there from the United States. Another was Australia, which became a
penal colony now that America was no longer available for prisoners and
debtors. The third newcomer-the United States-based itself squarely on
republican principles.
Yet even the political overturn was not so revolutionary as one might
suppose. In some states, notably Connecticut and Rhode Island, the war
largely ratified a colonial self-rule already existing. British
officials, everywhere ousted, were replaced by a home-grown governing
class, which promptly sought a local substitute for king and Parliament.
09 Suburbanization
If by "suburb" is meant an urban margin that grows more rapidly than its
already developed interior, the process of suburbanization began during
the emergence of the industrial city in the second quarter of the
nineteenth century. Before that period the city was a small highly
compact cluster in which people moved about on foot and goods were
conveyed by horse and cart. But the early factories built in the 1840's
were located along waterways and near railheads at the edges of cities,
and housing was needed for the thousands of people drawn by the prospect
of employment. In time, the factories were surrounded by proliferating
mill towns of apartments and row houses that abutted the older, main
cities. As a defense against this encroachment and to enlarge their tax
bases, the cities appropriated their industrial neighbors. In 1854, for
example, the city of Philadelphia annexed most of Philadelphia County.
Similar municipal maneuvers took place in Chicago and in New York.
Indeed, most great cities of the United States achieved such status only
by incorporating the communities along their borders.
With the acceleration of industrial growth came acute urban crowding and
accompanying social stress-conditions that began to approach disastrous
proportions when, in 1888, the first commercially successful electric
traction line was developed. Within a few years the horse-drawn trolleys
were retired and electric streetcar networks crisscrossed and connected
every major urban area, fostering a wave of suburbanization that
transFORMed the compact industrial city into a dispersed metropolis.
This first phase of mass-scale suburbanization was reinforced by the
simultaneous emergence of the urban Middle Class, whose desires for
homeownership in neighborhoods far from the aging inner city were
satisfied by the developers of single-family housing tracts.
10 Types of Speech
Standard usage includes those words and expressions understood, used,
and accepted by a majority of the speakers of a language in any
situation regardless of the level ofFORMality. As such, these words and
expressions are well defined and listed in standard dictionaries.
Colloquialisms, on the other hand, are familiar words and idioms that
are understood by almost all speakers of a language and used in inFORMal
speech or writing, but not considered appropriate for moreFORMal
situations. Almost all idiomatic expressions are colloquial language.
Slang, however, refers to words and expressions understood by a large
number of speakers but not accepted as good,FORMal usage by the
majority. Colloquial expressions and even slang may be found in standard
dictionaries but will be so identified. Both colloquial usage and slang
are more common in speech than in writing.
Colloquial speech often passes into standard speech. Some slang also
passes into standard speech, but other slang expressions enjoy momentary
popularity followed by obscurity. In some cases, the majority never
accepts certain slang phrases but nevertheless retains them in their
collective memories. Every generation seems to require its own set of
words to describe familiar objects and events. It has been pointed out
by a number of linguists that three cultural conditions are necessary
for the creation of a large body of slang expressions. First, the
introduction and acceptance of new objects and situations in the
society;second, a diverse population with a large number of subgroups;
third, association among the subgroups and the majority population.
Finally, it is worth noting that the terms "standard" "colloquial"
and "slang" exist only as abstract labels for scholars who study
language. Only a tiny number of the speakers of any language will be
aware that they are using colloquial or slang expressions. Most speakers
of English will, during appropriate situations, select and use all three
types of expressions.
11 Archaeology
Archaeology is a source of history, not just a bumble auxiliary
discipline. Archaeological data are historical documents in their own
right, not mere illustrations to written texts, Just as much as any
other historian, an archaeologist studies and tries to reconstitute the
process that has created the human world in which we live - and us
ourselves in so far as we are each creatures of our age and social
environment. Archaeological data are all changes in the material world
resulting from human action or, more succinctly, the fossilized results
of human behavior. The sum total of these constitutes what may be called
the archaeological record. This record exhibits certain peculiarities
and deficiencies the consequences of which produce a rather superficial
contrast between archaeological history and the more familiar kind based
upon written records.
Not all human behavior fossilizes. The words I utter and you hear as
vibrations in the air are certainly human changes in the material world
and may be of great historical significance. Yet they leave no sort of
trace in the archaeological records unless they are captured by a
dictaphone or written down by a clerk. The movement of troops on the
battlefield may "change the course of history," but this is equally
ephemeral from the archaeologist's standpoint. What is perhaps worse,
most organic materials are perishable. Everything made of wood, hide,
wool, linen, grass, hair, and similar materials will decay and vanish in
dust in a few years or centuries, save under very exceptional
conditions. In a relatively brief period the archaeological record is
reduce to mere scraps of stone, bone, glass, metal, and earthenware.
Still modern archaeology, by applying appropriate techniques and
comparative methods, aided by a few lucky finds from peat-bogs, deserts,
and frozen soils, is able to fill up a good deal of the gap.
12 Museums
From Boston to Los Angeles, from New York City to Chicago to Dallas,
museums are either planning, building, or wrapping up wholesale
expansion programs. These programs already have radically altered
facades and floor plans or are expected to do so in the not-too-distant
future.
In New York City alone, six major institutions have spread up and out
into the air space and neighborhoods around them or are preparing to do
so.
The reasons for this confluence of activity are complex, but one factor
is a consideration everywhere - space. With collections expanding, with
the needs and functions of museums changing, empty space has become a
very precious commodity.
Probably nowhere in the country is this more true than at the
Philadelphia Museum of Art, which has needed additional space for
decades and which received its last significant facelift ten years ago.
Because of the space crunch, the Art Museum has become increasingly
cautious in considering acquisitions and donations of art, in some cases
passing up opportunities to strengthen its collections.
Deaccessing - or selling off - works of art has taken on new importance
because of the museum's space problems. And increasingly, curators have
been forced to juggle gallery space, rotating one masterpiece into
public view while another is sent to storage.
Despite the clear need for additional gallery and storage space,
however," the museum has no plan, no plan to break out of its envelope
in the next fifteen years," according to Philadelphia Museum of Art's
president.
13 Skyscrapers and Environment
In the late 1960's, many people in North America turned their attention
to environmental problems, and new steel-and-glass skyscrapers were
widely criticized. Ecologists pointed out that a cluster of tall
buildings in a city often overburdens public transportation and parking
lot capacities.
Skyscrapers are also lavish consumers, and wasters, of electric power.
In one recent year, the addition of 17 million square feet of skyscraper
office space in New York City raised the peak daily demand for
electricity by 120, 000 kilowatts-enough to supply the entire city of
Albany, New York, for a day.
Glass-walled skyscrapers can be especially wasteful. The heat loss (or
gain)through a wall of half-inch plate glass is more than ten times that
through a typical masonry wall filled with insulation board. To lessen
the strain on heating and air-conditioning equipment, builders of
skyscrapers have begun to use double-glazed panels of glass, and
reflective glasses coated with silver or gold mirror films that reduce
glare as well as heat gain. However, mirror-walled skyscrapers raise the
temperature of the surrounding air and affect neighboring buildings.
Skyscrapers put a severe strain on a city's sanitation facilities, too.
If fully occupied, the two World Trade Center towers in New York City
would alone generate 2.25 million gallons of raw sewage each year-as
much as a city the size of Stanford, Connecticut , which has a
population of more than 109, 000.
14 A Rare Fossil Record
The preservation of embryos and juveniles is a rate occurrence in the
fossil record. The tiny, delicate skeletons are usually scattered by
scavengers or destroyed by weathering before they can be fossilized.
Ichthyosaurs had a higher chance of being preserved than did terrestrial
creatures because, as marine animals, they tended to live in
environments less subject to erosion. Still, their fossilization
required a suite of factors: a slow rate of decay of soft tissues,
little scavenging by other animals, a lack of swift currents and waves
to jumble and carry away small bones, and fairly rapid burial. Given
these factors, some areas have become a treasury of well-preserved
ichthyosaur fossils.
The deposits at Holzmaden, Germany, present an interesting case for
analysis. The ichthyosaur remains are found in black, bituminous marine
shales deposited about 190 million years ago. Over the years, thousands
of specimens of marine reptiles, fish and invertebrates have been
recovered from these rocks. The quality of preservation is outstanding,
but what is even more impressive is the number of ichthyosaur fossils
containing preserved embryos. Ichthyosaurs with embryos have been
reported from 6 different levels of the shale in a small area around
Holzmaden, suggesting that a specific site was used by large numbers of
ichthyosaurs repeatedly over time. The embryos are quite advanced in
their physical development;their paddles, for example, are already well
FORMed. One specimen is even preserved in the birth canal. In addition,
the shale contains the remains of many newborns that are between 20 and
30 inches long.
Why are there so many pregnant females and young at Holzmaden when they
are so rare elsewhere? The quality of preservation is almost unmatched
and quarry operations have been carried out carefully with an awareness
of thevalue of the fossils. But these factors do not account for the
interesting question of how there came to be such a concentration of
pregnant ichthyosaurs in a particular place very close to their time of
giving birth.
15 The Nobel Academy
For the last 82years, Sweden's Nobel Academy has decided who will
receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, thereby determining who will be
elevated from the great and the near great to the immortal. But today
the Academy is coming under heavy criticism both from the without and
from within. Critics contend that the selection of the winners often has
less to do with true writing ability than with the peculiar internal
politics of the Academy and of Sweden itself. According to Ingmar
Bjorksten , the cultural editor for one of the country's two major
newspapers, the prize continues to represent "what people call a very
Swedish exercise: reflecting Swedish tastes."
The Academy has defended itself against such charges of provincialism in
its selection by asserting that its physical distance from the great
literary capitals of the world actually serves to protect the Academy
from outside influences. This may well be true, but critics respond that
this very distance may also be responsible for the Academy's inability
to perceive accurately authentic trends in the literary world.
Regardless of concerns over the selection process, however, it seems
that the prize will continue to survive both as an indicator of the
literature that we most highly praise, and as an elusive goal that
writers seek. If for no other reason, the prize will continue to be
desirable for the financial rewards that accompany it;not only is the
cash prize itself considerable, but it also dramatically increases sales
of an author's books.
16. the war between Britain and France
In the late eighteenth century, battles raged in almost every corner of
Europe, as well as in the Middle East, south Africa ,the West Indies,
and Latin America. In reality, however, there was only one major war
during this time, the war between Britain and France. All other battles
were ancillary to this larger conflict, and were often at least
partially related to its antagonist’ goals and strategies. France
sought total domination of Europe . this goal was obstructed by British
independence and Britain’s efforts throughout the continent to thwart
Napoleon;through treaties. Britain built coalitions (not dissimilar in
concept to today’s NATO) guaranteeing British participation in all
major European conflicts. These two antagonists were poorly matched,
insofar as they had very unequal strengths;France was predominant on
land, Britain at sea. The French knew that, short of defeating the
British navy, their only hope of victory was to close all the ports of
Europe to British ships. Accordingly, France set out to overcome Britain
by extending its military domination from Moscow t Lisbon, from Jutland
to Calabria. All of this entailed tremendous risk, because France did
not have the military resources to control this much territory and still
protect itself and maintain order at home.
French strategists calculated that a navy of 150 ships would provide the
force necessary to defeat the British navy. Such a force would give
France a three-to-two advantage over Britain. This advantage was deemed
necessary because of Britain’s superior sea skills and technology
because of Britain’s superior sea skills and technology, and also
because Britain would be fighting a defensive war, allowing it to win
with fewer forces. Napoleon never lost substantial impediment to his
control of Europe. As his force neared that goal, Napoleon grew
increasingly impatient and began planning an immediate attack.
17.Evolution of sleep
Sleep is very ancient. In the electroencephalographic sense we share it
with all the primates and almost all the other mammals and birds: it may
extend back as far as the reptiles.
There is some evidence that the two types of sleep, dreaming and
dreamless, depend on the life-style of the animal, and that predators
are statistically much more likely to dream than prey, which are in turn
much more likely to experience dreamless sleep. In dream sleep, the
animal is powerfully immobilized and remarkably unresponsive to external
stimuli. Dreamless sleep is much shallower, and we have all witnessed
cats or dogs cocking their ears to a sound when apparently fast asleep.
The fact that deep dream sleep is rare among pray today seems clearly to
be a product of natural selection, and it makes sense that today, when
sleep is highly evolved, the stupid animals are less frequently
immobilized by deep sleep than the smart ones. But why should they sleep
deeply at all? Why should a state of such deep immobilization ever have
evolved?
Perhaps one useful hint about the original function of sleep is to be
found in the fact that dolphins and whales and aquatic mammals in genera
seem to sleep very little. There is, by and large, no place to hide in
the ocean. Could it be that, rather than increasing an animal’s
vulnerability, the University of Florida and Ray Meddis of London
University have suggested this to be the case. It is conceivable that
animals who are too stupid to be quite on their own initiative are,
during periods of high risk, immobilized by the implacable arm of sleep.
The point seems particularly clear for the young of predatory animals.
This is an interesting notion and probably at least partly true.
18.Modern American Universities
Before the 1850’s, the United States had a number of small colleges,
most of them dating from colonial days. They were small, church
connected institutions whose primary concern was to shape the moral
character of their students.
Throughout Europe, institutions of higher learning had developed,
bearing the ancient name of university. In German university was
concerned primarily with creating and spreading knowledge, not morals.
Between mid-century and the end of the 1800’s, more than nine thousand
young Americans, dissatisfied with their training at home, went to
Germany for advanced study. Some of them return to become presidents of
venerable colleges-----Harvard, Yale, Columbia---and transFORM them into
modern universities. The new presidents broke all ties with the churches
and brought in a new kind of faculty. Professors were hired for their
knowledge of a subject, not because they were of the proper faith and
had a strong arm for disciplining students. The new principle was that a
university was to create knowledge as well as pass it on, and this
called for a faculty composed of teacher-scholars. Drilling and learning
by rote were replaced by the German method of lecturing, in which the
professor’s own research was presented in class. Graduate training
leading to the Ph.D., an ancient German degree signifying the highest
level of advanced scholarly attainment, was introduced. With the
establishment of the seminar system, graduate student learned to
question, analyze, and conduct their own research.
At the same time, the new university greatly expanded in size and course
offerings, breaking completely out of the old, constricted curriculum of
mathematics, classics, rhetoric, and music. The president of Harvard
pioneered the elective system, by which students were able to choose
their own course of study. The notion of major fields of study emerged.
The new goal was to make the university relevant to the real pursuits of
the world. Paying close heed to the practical needs of society, the new
universities trained men and women to work at its tasks, with
engineering students being the most characteristic of the new regime.
Students were also trained as economists, architects, agriculturalists,
social welfare workers, and teachers.
19.children’s numerical skills
people appear to born to compute. The numerical skills of children
develop so early and so inexorably that it is easy to imagine an
internal clock of mathematical maturity guiding their growth. Not long
after learning to walk and talk, they can set the table with impress
accuracy---one knife, one spoon, one fork, for each of the five chairs.
Soon they are capable of nothing that they have placed five knives,
spoons and forks on the table and, a bit later, that this amounts to
fifteen pieces of silverware. Having thus mastered addition, they move
on to subtraction. It seems almost reasonable to expect that if a child
were secluded on a desert island at birth and retrieved seven years
later, he or she could enter a second enter a second-grade mathematics
class without any serious problems of intellectual adjustment.
Of course, the truth is not so simple. This century, the work of
cognitive psychologists has illuminated the subtleFORMs of daily
learning on which intellectual progress depends. Children were observed
as they slowly grasped-----or, as the case might be, bumped into-----
concepts that adults take for quantity is unchanged as water pours from
a short glass into a tall thin one. Psychologists have since
demonstrated that young children, asked to count the pencils in a pile,
readily report the number of blue or red pencils, but must be coaxed
into finding the total. Such studies have suggested that the rudiments
of mathematics are mastered gradually, and with effort. They have also
suggested that the very concept of abstract numbers------the idea of a
oneness,
a twoness, a threeness that applies to any class of objects and is a
prerequisite for doing anything more mathematically demanding than
setting a table-----is itself far from innate
20 The Historical Significance of American Revolution
The ways of history are so intricate and the motivations of human
actions so complex that it is always hazardous to attempt to represent
events covering a number of years, a multiplicity of persons, and
distant localities as the expression of one intellectual or social
movement;yet the historical process which culminated in the ascent of
Thomas Jefferson to the presidency can be regarded as the outstanding
example not only of the birth of a new way of life but of nationalism as
a new way of life. The American Revolution represents the link between
the seventeenth century, in which modern England became conscious of
itself, and the awakening of modern Europe at the end of the eighteenth
century. It may seem strange that the march of history should have had
to cross the Atlantic Ocean, but only in the North American colonies
could a struggle for civic liberty lead also to the foundation of a new
nation. Here, in the popular rising against a “tyrannical” government,
the fruits were more than the securing of a freer constitution. They
included the growth of a nation born in liberty by the will of the
people, not from the roots of common descent, a geographic entity, or
the ambitions of king or dynasty. With the American nation, for the
first time, a nation was born, not in the dim past of history but before
the eyes of the whole world.
21 The Origin of Sports
When did sport begin? If sport is, in essence, play, the claim might be
made that sport is much older than humankind, for , as we all have
observed, the beasts play. Dogs and cats wrestle and play ball games.
Fishes and birds dance. The apes have simple, pleasurable games.
Frolicking infants, school children playing tag, and adult arm wrestlers
are demonstrating strong, transgenerational and transspecies bonds with
the universe of animals - past, present, and future. Young animals,
particularly, tumble, chase, run wrestle, mock, imitate, and laugh (or
so it seems) to the point of delighted exhaustion. Their play, and ours,
appears to serve no other purpose than to give pleasure to the players,
and apparently, to remove us temporarily from the anguish of life in
earnest.
Some philosophers have claimed that our playfulness is the most noble
part of our basic nature. In their generous conceptions, play harmlessly
and experimentally permits us to put our creative forces, fantasy, and
imagination into action. Play is release from the tedious battles
against scarcity and decline which are the incessant, and inevitable,
tragedies of life. This is a grand conception that excites and provokes.
The holders of this view claim that the origins of our highest
accomplishments ---- liturgy, literature, and law ---- can be traced to
a play impulse which, paradoxically, we see most purely enjoyed by young
beasts and children. Our sports, in this rather happy, nonfatalistic
view of human nature, are more splendid creations of the nondatable,
transspecies play impulse.
22. Collectibles
Collectibles have been a part of almost every culture since ancient
times. Whereas some objects have been collected for their usefulness,
others have been selected for their aesthetic beauty alone. In the
United States, the kinds of collectibles currently popular range from
traditional objects such as stamps, coins, rare books, and art to more
recent items of interest like dolls, bottles, baseball cards, and comic
books.
Interest in collectibles has increased enormously during the past
decade, in part because some collectibles have demonstrated theirvalue
as investments. Especially during cycles of high inflation, investors
try to purchase tangibles that will at least retain their current market
values. In general, the most traditional collectibles will be sought
because they have preserved theirvalue over the years, there is an
organized auction market for them, and they are most easily sold in the
event that cash is needed. Some examples of the most stable collectibles
are old masters, Chinese ceramics, stamps, coins, rare books, antique
jewelry, silver, porcelain, art by well-known artists, autographs, and
period furniture. Other items of more recent interest include old
photograph records, old magazines, post cards, baseball cards, art
glass, dolls, classic cars, old bottles, and comic books. These
relatively new kinds of collectibles may actually appreciate faster as
short-term investments, but may not hold theirvalue as long-term
investments. Once a collectible has had its initial play, it appreciates
at a fairly steady rate, supported by an increasing number of
enthusiastic collectors competing for the limited supply of collectibles
that become increasingly more difficult to locate.
23 Ford
Although Henry Ford’s name is closely associated with the concept of
mass production, he should receive equal credit for introducing labor
practices as early as 1913 that would be considered advanced even by
today’s standards. Safety measures were improved, and the work day was
reduced to eight hours, compared with the ten-or twelve-hour day common
at the time. In order to accommodate the shorter work day, the entire
factory was converted from two to three shifts.
In addition, sick leaves as well as improved medical care for those
injured on the job were instituted. The Ford Motor Company was one of
the first factories to develop a technical school to train specialized
skilled laborers and an English language school for immigrants. Some
efforts were even made to hire the handicapped and provide jobs for
FORMer convicts.
The most widely acclaimed innovation was the five-dollar-a-day minimum
wage that was offered in order to recruit and retain the best mechanics
and to discourage the growth of labor unions. Ford explained the new
wage policy in terms of efficiency and profit sharing. He also mentioned
the fact that his employees would be able to purchase the automobiles
that they produced - in effect creating a market for the product. In
order to qualify for the minimum wage, an employee had to establish a
decent home and demonstrate good personal habits, including sobriety,
thriftiness, industriousness, and dependability. Although some criticism
was directed at Ford for involving himself too much in the personal
lives of his employees, there can be no doubt that, at a time when
immigrants were being taken advantage of in frightful ways, Henry Ford
was helping many people to establish themselves in America.
24．Piano
The ancestry of the piano can be traced to the early keyboard
instruments of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries --- the spinet, the
dulcimer, and the virginal. In the seventeenth century the organ, the
clavichord, and the harpsichord became the chief instruments of the
keyboard group, a supremacy they maintained until the piano supplanted
them at the end of the eighteenth century. The clavichord’s tone was
metallic and never powerful;nevertheless, because of the variety of
tone possible to it, many composers found the clavichord a sympathetic
instrument for intimate chamber music. The harpsichord with its bright,
vigorous tone was the favorite instrument for supporting the bass of the
small orchestra of the period and for concert use, but the character of
the tone could not be varied save by mechanical or structural devices.
The piano was perfected in the early eighteenth century by a harpsichord
maker in Italy (though musicologists point out several previous
instances of the instrument). This instrument was called a piano e
forte (sort and loud), to indicate its dynamic versatility;its strings
were struck by a recoiling hammer with a felt-padded head. The wires
were much heavier in the earlier instruments. A series of mechanical
improvements continuing well into the nineteenth century, including the
introduction of pedals to sustain tone or to soften it, the perfection
of a metal frame, and steel wire of the finest quality, finally produced
an instrument capable of myriad tonal effects from the most delicate
harmonies to an almost orchestral fullness of sound, from a liquid,
singing tone to a sharp, percussive brilliance.
NOTE:
Musical Instruments
1.The strings (弦乐)
1) plectrum: harp, lute, guitar, mandolin;
2) keyboard: clavichord, harpsichord, piano;
3) bow: violin, viola, cello, double bass.
2. The Wood（木管）-winds : piccolo, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon,
English horn;
3. the brass（铜管）: French horn, trumpet, trombone, cornet, tuba,
bugle, saxophone;
4.the percussion（打击组）: kettle drum, bass drum, snare drum,
castanet, xylophone, celesta, cymbal, tambourine.
25. Movie Music
Accustomed though we are to speaking of the films made before 1927 as
“silent”, the film has never been, in the full sense of the word,
silent. From the very beginning, music was regarded as an indispensable
accompaniment;when the Lumiere films were shown at the first public
film exhibition in the United States in February 1896, they were
accompanied by piano improvisations on popular tunes. At first, the
music played bore no special relationship to the films;an accompaniment
of any kind was sufficient. Within a very short time, however, the
incongruity of playing lively music to a solemn film became apparent,
and film pianists began to take some care in matching their pieces to
the mood of the film.
As movie theaters grew in number and importance, a violinist, and
perhaps a cellist, would be added to the pianist in certain cases, and
in the larger movie theaters small orchestras wereFORMed. For a number
of years the selection of music for each film program rested entirely in
the hands of the conductor or leader of the orchestra, and very often
the principal qualification for holding such a position was not skill or
taste so much as the ownership of a large personal library of musical
pieces. Since the conductor seldom saw the films until the night before
they were to be shown(if indeed, the conductor was lucky enough to see
them then), the musical arrangement was normally improvised in the
greatest hurry.
To help meet this difficulty, film distributing companies started the
practice of publishing suggestions for musical accompaniments. In 1909,
for example, the Edison Company began issuing with their films such
indications of mood as “ pleasant”, “sad”, “lively”. The
suggestions became more explicit, and so emerged the musical cue sheet
containing indications of mood, the titles of suitable pieces of music,
and precise directions to show where one piece led into the next.
Certain films had music especially composed for them. The most famous of
these early special scores was that composed and arranged for D.W
Griffith’s film Birth of a Nation, which was released in 1915.
Note:
美国通俗音乐分类：
1．Jazz;
1) traditional jazz---- a) blues, 代表人物：Billy Holiday
b)ragtime(切分乐曲): 代表人物：Scott
Joplin
c)New Orleans jazz (= Dixieland jazz)
eg: Louis Armstron
d)swing eg: Glenn Miller, Duke
Ellington, etc.
e)bop (=bebop, rebop) eg: Lester Young, Charlie
Parker etc.
2)modern jazz ------ a) cool jazz(=progressive jazz)高雅爵士乐。 Eg:
Kenny G.
b)third-stream jazz. Eg: Charles
Mingus, John Lewis.
c) main stream jazz.
d)avant-garde jazz.
e) soul jazz. Eg: Sarah Vaughn, Ella
Fitzgerald
f) Latin jazz.
2.gospel music 福音音乐， 主要源于Nero spirituals. Eg. Dolly Parker,
Mahalia Jackson
3.Country and Western music. Eg. John Denver, Tammy Wynette, Kenny
Rogers, etc.
4. Rock music-----------a) rock and roll eg: Elvis Prestley(US) , the
Beatles(UK.)
b)folk rock Eg: Bob Dylon, Michael
Jackson, Mariah Carey, Bruce Springsteen, Lionel Riche etc.
c)punk rock
d)acid rock
e)rock jazz eg: M.J. McLaughlin
f) Jurassic rock
5.Music for easy listening (i.e. light music )
26. International Business and Cross-cultural Communication
The increase in international business and in foreign investment has
created a need for executives with knowledge of foreign languages and
skills in cross-cultural communication. Americans, however, have not
been well trained in either area and, consequently, have not enjoyed the
same level of success in negotiation in an international arena as have
their foreign counterparts.
Negotiating is the process of communicating back and forth for the
purpose of reaching an agreement. It involves persuasion and compromise,
but in order to participate in either one, the negotiators must
understand the ways in which people are persuaded and how compromise is
reached within the culture of the negotiation.
In many international business negotiations abroad, Americans are
perceived as wealthy and impersonal. It often appears to the foreign
negotiator that the American represents a large multi-million-dollar
corporation that can afford to pay the price without bargaining further.
The American negotiator’s role becomes that of an impersonal purveyor
of inFORMation and cash.
In studies of American negotiators abroad, several traits have been
identified that may serve to confirm this stereotypical perception,
while undermining the negotiator’s position. Two traits in particular
that cause cross-cultural misunderstanding are directness and impatience
on the part of the American negotiator. Furthermore, American
negotiators often insist on realizing short-term goals. Foreign
negotiators, on the other hand, mayvalue the relationship established
between negotiators and may be willing to invest time in it for long-
term benefits. In order to solidify the relationship, they may opt for
indirect interactions without regard for the time involved in getting to
know the other negotiator.
27. Scientific Theories
In science, a theory is a reasonable explanation of observed events that
are related. A theory often involves an imaginary model that helps
scientists picture the way an observed event could be produced. A good
example of this is found in the kinetic molecular theory, in which gases
are pictured as being made up of many small particles that are in
constant motion.
A useful theory, in addition to explaining past observations, helps to
predict events that have not as yet been observed. After a theory has
been publicized, scientists design experiments to test the theory. If
observations confirm the scientist’s predictions, the theory is
supported. If observations do not confirm the predictions, the
scientists must search further. There may be a fault in the experiment,
or the theory may have to be revised or rejected.
Science involves imagination and creative thinking as well as collecting
inFORMation and perFORMing experiments. Facts by themselves are not
science. As the mathematician Jules Henri Poincare said, “Science is
built with facts just as a house is built with bricks, but a collection
of facts cannot be called science any more than a pile of bricks can be
called a house.”
Most scientists start an investigation by finding out what other
scientists have learned about a particular problem. After known facts
have been gathered, the scientist comes to the part of the investigation
that requires considerable imagination. Possible solutions to the
problem areFORMulated. These possible solutions are called hypotheses.
In a way, any hypothesis is a leap into the unknown. It extends the
scientist’s thinking beyond the known facts. The scientist plans
experiments, perFORMs calculations, and makes observations to test
hypotheses. Without hypothesis, further investigation lacks purpose and
direction. When hypotheses are confirmed, they are incorporated into
theories.
28.Changing Roles of Public Education
One of the most important social developments that helped to make
possible a shift in thinking about the role of public education was the
effect of the baby boom of the 1950's and 1960's on the schools. In the
1920's, but especially in the Depression conditions of the 1930's, the
United States experienced a declining birth rate --- every thousand
women aged fifteen to forty-four gave birth to about 118 live children
in 1920, 89.2 in 1930, 75.8 in 1936, and 80 in 1940. With the growing
prosperity brought on by the Second World War and the economic boom that
followed it young people married and established households earlier and
began to raise larger families than had their predecessors during the
Depression. Birth rates rose to 102 per thousand in 1946,106.2 in 1950,
and 118 in 1955. Although economics was probably the most important
determinant, it is not the only explanation for the baby boom. The
increasedvalue placed on the idea of the family also helps to explain
this rise in birth rates. The baby boomers began streaming into the
first grade by the mid 1940's and became a flood by 1950. The public
school system suddenly found itself overtaxed. While the number of
schoolchildren rose because of wartime and postwar conditions, these
same conditions made the schools even less prepared to cope with the
food. The wartime economy meant that few new schools were built between
1940 and 1945. Moreover, during the war and in the boom times that
followed, large numbers of teachers left their profession for better-
paying jobs elsewhere in the economy.
Therefore in the 1950’s and 1960’s, the baby boom hit an antiquated
and inadequate school system. Consequently, the “ custodial rhetoric”
of the 1930’s and early 1940’s no longer made sense that is, keeping
youths aged sixteen and older out of the labor market by keeping them in
school could no longer be a high priority for an institution unable to
find space and staff to teach younger children aged five to sixteen.
With the baby boom, the focus of educators and of laymen interested in
education inevitably turned toward the lower grades and back to basic
academic skills and discipline. The system no longer had much interest
in offering nontraditional, new, and extra services to older youths.
29 Telecommuting
Telecommuting-- substituting the computer for the trip to the job ----
has been hailed as a solution to all kinds of problems related to office
work.
For workers it promises freedom from the office, less time wasted in
traffic, and help with child-care conflicts. For management,
telecommuting helps keep high perFORMers on board, minimizes tardiness
and absenteeism by eliminating commutes, allows periods of solitude for
high-concentration tasks, and provides scheduling flexibility. In some
areas, such as Southern California and Seattle, Washington, local
governments are encouraging companies to start telecommuting programs in
order to reduce rush-hour congestion and improve air quality.
But these benefits do not come easily. Making a telecommuting program
work requires careful planning and an understanding of the differences
between telecommuting realities and popular images.
Many workers are seduced by rosy illusions of life as a telecommuter. A
computer programmer from New York City moves to the tranquil Adirondack
Mountains and stays in contact with her office via computer. A manager
comes in to his office three days a week and works at home the other
two. An accountant stays home to care for her sick child;she hooks up
her telephone modern connections and does office work between calls to
the doctor.
These are powerful images, but they are a limited reflection of reality.
Telecommuting workers soon learn that it is almost impossible to
concentrate on work and care for a young child at the same time. Before
a certain age, young children cannot recognize, much less respect, the
necessary boundaries between work and family. Additional child support
is necessary if the parent is to get any work done.
Management too must separate the myth from the reality. Although the
media has paid a great deal of attention to telecommuting in most cases
it is the employee’s situation, not the availability of technology that
precipitates a telecommuting arrangement.
That is partly why, despite the widespread press coverage, the number of
companies with work-at-home programs or policy guidelines remains small.
30 The origin of Refrigerators
By the mid-nineteenth century, the term “icebox” had entered the
American language, but ice was still only beginning to affect the diet
of ordinary citizens in the United States. The ice trade grew with the
growth of cities. Ice was used in hotels, taverns, and hospitals, and by
some forward-looking city dealers in fresh meat, fresh fish, and butter.
After the Civil War( 1861-1865),as ice was used to refrigerate freight
cars, it also came into household use. Even before 1880,half of the ice
sold in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and one-third of that
sold in Boston and Chicago, went to families for their own use. This had
become possible because a new household convenience, the icebox, a
precursor of the modern refrigerator, had been invented.
Making an efficient icebox was not as easy as we might now suppose. In
the early nineteenth century, the knowledge of the physics of heat,
which was essential to a science of refrigeration, was rudimentary. The
commonsense notion that the best icebox was one that prevented the ice
from melting was of course mistaken, for it was the melting of the ice
that perFORMed the cooling. Nevertheless, early efforts to economize ice
included wrapping up the ice in blankets, which kept the ice from doing
its job. Not until near the end of the nineteenth century did inventors
achieve the delicate balance of insulation and circulation needed for an
efficient icebox.
But as early as 1803, and ingenious Maryland farmer, Thomas Moore, had
been on the right track. He owned a farm about twenty miles outside the
city of Washington, for which the village of Georgetown was the market
center. When he used an icebox of his own design to transport his butter
to market, he found that customers would pass up the rapidly melting
stuff in the tubs of his competitors to pay a premium price for his
butter, still fresh and hard in neat, one-pound bricks. One advantage of
his icebox, Moore explained, was that farmers would no longer have to
travel to market at night in order to keep their produce cool.
31 British Columbia
British Columbia is the third largest Canadian provinces, both in area
and population. It is nearly 1.5 times as large as Texas, and extends
800 miles(1,280km) north from the United States border. It includes
Canada’s entire west coast and the islands just off the coast.
Most of British Columbia is mountainous, with long rugged ranges running
north and south. Even the coastal islands are the remains of a mountain
range that existed thousands of years ago. During the last Ice Age, this
range was scoured by glaciers until most of it was beneath the sea. Its
peaks now show as islands scattered along the coast.
The southwestern coastal region has a humid mild marine climate. Sea
winds that blow inland from the west are warmed by a current of warm
water that flows through the Pacific Ocean. As a result, winter
temperatures average above freezing and summers are mild. These warm
western winds also carry moisture from the ocean.
Inland from the coast, the winds from the Pacific meet the mountain
barriers of the coastal ranges and the Rocky Mountains. As they rise to
cross the mountains, the winds are cooled, and their moisture begins to
fall as rain. On some of the western slopes almost 200 inches (500cm) of
rain fall each year.
More than half of British Columbia is heavily forested. On mountain
slopes that receive plentiful rainfall, huge Douglas firs rise in
towering columns. These forest giants often grow to be as much as 300
feet(90m) tall, with diameters up to 10 feet(3m). More lumber is
produced from these trees than from any other kind of tree in North
America. Hemlock, red cedar, and balsam fir are among the other trees
found in British Columbia.
32 Botany
Botany, the study of plants, occupies a peculiar position in the history
of human knowledge. For many thousands of years it was the one field of
awareness about which humans had anything more than the vaguest of
insights. It is impossible to know today just what our Stone Age
ancestors knew about plants, butFORM what we can observe of pre-
industrial societies that still exist a detailed learning of plants and
their properties must be extremely ancient. This is logical. Plants are
the basis of the food pyramid for all living things even for other
plants. They have always been enormously important to the welfare of
people not only for food, but also for clothing, weapons, tools, dyes,
medicines, shelter, and a great many other purposes. Tribes living today
in the jungles of the Amazon recognize literally hundreds of plants and
know many properties of each. To them, botany, as such, has no name and
is probably not even recognized as a special branch of “ knowledge” at
all.
Unfortunately, the more industrialized we become the farther away we
move from direct contact with plants, and the less distinct our
knowledge of botany grows. Yet everyone comes unconsciously on an
amazing amount of botanical knowledge, and few people will fail to
recognize a rose, an apple, or an orchid. When our Neolithic ancestors,
living in the Middle East about 10,000 years ago, discovered that
certain grasses could be harvested and their seeds planted for richer
yields the next season the first great step in a new association of
plants and humans was taken. Grains were discovered and from them flowed
the marvel of agriculture: cultivated crops. From then on, humans would
increasingly take their living from the controlled production of a few
plants, rather than getting a little here and a little there from many
varieties that grew wild- and the accumulated knowledge of tens of
thousands of years of experience and intimacy with plants in the wild
would begin to fade away.
33 Plankton浮游生物. / 'plжηktэn;`plжηktэn/
Scattered through the seas of the world are billions of tons of small
plants and animals called plankton. Most of these plants and animals are
too small for the human eye to see. They drift about lazily with the
currents, providing a basic food for many larger animals.
Plankton has been described as the equivalent of the grasses that grow
on the dry land continents, and the comparison is an appropriate one. In
potential foodvalue, however, plankton far outweighs that of the land
grasses. One scientist has estimated that while grasses of the world
produce about 49 billion tons of valuable carbohydrates each year, the
sea’s plankton generates more than twice as much.
Despite its enormous food potential, little effect was made until
recently to farm plankton as we farm grasses on land. Now marine
scientists have at last begun to study this possibility, especially as
the sea’s resources loom even more important as a means of feeding an
expanding world population.
No one yet has seriously suggested that “ plankton-burgers” may soon
become popular around the world. As a possible farmed supplementary food
source, however, plankton is gaining considerable interest among marine
scientists.
One type of plankton that seems to have great harvest possibilities is a
tiny shrimp-like creature called krill. Growing to two or three inches
long, krill provides the major food for the great blue whale, the
largest animal to ever inhabit the Earth. Realizing that this whale may
grow to 100 feet and weigh 150 tons at maturity, it is not surprising
that each one devours more than one ton of krill daily.
34 Raising Oysters
In the oysters were raised in much the same way as dirt farmers raised
tomatoes- by transplanting them. First, farmers selected the oyster bed,
cleared the bottom of old shells and other debris, then scattered clean
shells about. Next, they ”planted” fertilized oyster eggs, which
within two or three weeks hatched into larvae. The larvae drifted until
they attached themselves to the clean shells on the bottom. There they
remained and in time grew into baby oysters called seed or spat. The
spat grew larger by drawing in seawater from which they derived
microscopic particles of food. Before long, farmers gathered the baby
oysters, transplanted them once more into another body of water to
fatten them up.
Until recently the supply of wild oysters and those crudely farmed were
more than enough to satisfy people’s needs. But today the delectable
seafood is no longer available in abundance. The problem has become so
serious that some oyster beds have vanished entirely.
Fortunately, as far back as the early 1900’s marine biologists realized
that if new measures were not taken, oysters would become extinct or at
best a luxury food. So they set up well-equipped hatcheries and went to
work. But they did not have the proper equipment or the skill to handle
the eggs. They did not know when, what, and how to feed the larvae. And
they knew little about the predators that attack and eat baby oysters by
the millions. They failed, but they doggedly kept at it. Finally, in the
1940’s a significant breakthrough was made.
The marine biologists discovered that by raising the temperature of the
water, they could induce oysters to spawn not only in the summer but
also in the fall, winter, and spring. Later they developed a technique
for feeding the larvae and rearing them to spat. Going still further,
they succeeded in breeding new strains that were resistant to diseases,
grew faster and larger, and flourished in water of different salinities
and temperatures. In addition, the cultivated oysters tasted better!
35.Oil Refining
An important new industry, oil refining, grew after the Civil war. Crude
oil, or petroleum - a dark, thick ooze from the earth - had been known
for hundreds of years, but little use had ever been made of it. In the
1850’s Samuel M. Kier, a manufacturer in western Pennsylvania, began
collecting the oil from local seepages and refining it into kerosene.
Refining, like smelting, is a process of removing impurities from a raw
material.
Kerosene was used to light lamps. It was a cheap substitute for whale
oil, which was becoming harder to get. Soon there was a large demand
for kerosene. People began to search for new supplies of petroleum.
The first oil well was drilled by E.L. Drake, a retired railroad
conductor. In 1859 he began drilling in Titusville, Pennsylvania. The
whole venture seemed so impractical and foolish that onlookers called it
“ Drake’s Folly”. But when he had drilled down about 70 feet(21
meters), Drake struck oil. His well began to yield 20 barrels of crude
oil a day.
News of Drake’s success brought oil prospectors to the scene. By the
early 1860’s these wildcatters were drilling for “ black gold” all
over western Pennsylvania. The boom rivaled the California gold rush of
1848 in its excitement and Wild West atmosphere. And it brought far more
wealth to the prospectors than any gold rush.
Crude oil could be refined into many products. For some years kerosene
continued to be the principal one. It was sold in grocery stores and
door-to-door. In the 1880’s refiners learned how to make other
petroleum products such as waxes and lubricating oils. Petroleum was not
then used to make gasoline or heating oil.
36.Plate Tectonics and Sea-floor Spreading
The theory of plate tectonics describes the motions of the lithosphere,
the comparatively rigid outer layer of the Earth that includes all the
crust and part of the underlying mantle. The lithosphere(n.[地]岩石圈)is
divided into a few dozen plates of various sizes and shapes, in general
the plates are in motion with respect to one another. A mid-ocean ridge
is a boundary between plates where new lithospheric material is injected
from below. As the plates diverge from a mid-ocean ridge they slide on a
more yielding layer at the base of the lithosphere.
Since the size of the Earth is essentially constant, new lithosphere can
be created at the mid-ocean ridges only if an equal amount of
lithospheric material is consumed elsewhere. The site of this
destruction is another kind of plate boundary: a subduction zone. There
one plate dives under the edge of another and is reincorporated into the
mantle. Both kinds of plate boundary are associated with fault systems,
earthquakes and volcanism, but the kinds of geologic activity observed
at the two boundaries are quite different.
The idea of sea-floor spreading actually preceded the theory of plate
tectonics. In its original version, in the early 1960’s, it described
the creation and destruction of the ocean floor, but it did not specify
rigid lithospheric plates. The hypothesis was substantiated soon
afterward by the discovery that periodic reversals of the Earth’s
magnetic field are recorded in the oceanic crust. As magma rises under
the mid-ocean ridge, ferromagnetic minerals in the magma become
magnetized in the direction of the magma become magnetized in the
direction of the geomagnetic field. When the magma cools and solidifies,
the direction and the polarity of the field are preserved in the
magnetized volcanic rock. Reversals of the field give rise to a series
of magnetic stripes running parallel to the axis of the rift. The
oceanic crust thus serves as a magnetic tape recording of the history of
the geomagnetic field that can be dated independently;the width of the
stripes indicates the rate of the sea-floor spreading.
37 Icebergs
Icebergs are among nature’s most spectacular creations, and yet most
people have never seen one. A vague air of mystery envelops them. They
come into being ----- somewhere ------in faraway, frigid waters, amid
thunderous noise and splashing turbulence, which in most cases no one
hears or sees. They exist only a short time and then slowly waste away
just as unnoticed.
Objects of sheerest beauty they have been called. Appearing in an
endless variety of shapes, they may be dazzlingly white, or they may be
glassy blue, green or purple, tinted faintly of in darker hues. They are
graceful, stately, inspiring ----- in calm, sunlight seas.
But they are also called frightening and dangerous, and that they are ---
- in the night, in the fog, and in storms. Even in clear weather one is
wise to stay a safe distance away from them. Most of their bulk is
hidden below the water, so their underwater parts may extend out far
beyond the visible top. Also, they may roll over unexpectedly, churning
the waters around them.
Icebergs are parts of glaciers that break off, drift into the water,
float about awhile, and finally melt. Icebergs afloat today are made of
snowflakes that have fallen over long ages of time. They embody snows
that drifted down hundreds, or many thousands, or in some cases maybe a
million years ago. The snows fell in polar regions and on cold
mountains, where they melted only a little or not at all, and so
collected to great depths over the years and centuries.
As each year’s snow accumulation lay on the surface, evaporation and
melting caused the snowflakes slowly to lose their feathery points and
become tiny grains of ice. When new snow fell on top of the old, it too
turned to icy grains. So blankets of snow and ice grains mounted layer
upon layer and were of such great thickness that the weight of the upper
layers compressed the lower ones. With time and pressure from above, the
many small ice grains joined and changed to larger crystals, and
eventually the deeper crystals merged into a solid mass of ice.
38 Topaz
Topaz is a hard, transparent mineral. It is a compound of aluminum,
silica, and fluorine. Gem topaz is valuable. Jewelers call this variety
of the stone “precious topaz”. The best-known precious topaz gems
range in color from rich yellow to light brown or pinkish red. Topaz is
one of the hardest gem minerals. In the mineral table of hardness, it
has a rating of 8, which means that a knife cannot cut it, and that
topaz will scratch quartz.
The golden variety of precious topaz is quite uncommon. Most of the
world’s topaz is white or blue. The white and blue crystals of topaz
are large, often weighing thousands of carats. For this reason, the
value of topaz does not depend so much on its size as it does with
diamonds and many other precious stones, where thevalue increases about
four times with each doubling of weight. Thevalue of a topaz is largely
determined by its quality. But color is also important: blue topaz, for
instance, is often irradiated to deepen and improve its color.
Blue topaz is often sold as aquamarine and a variety of brown quartz is
widely sold as topaz. The quartz is much less brilliant and more
plentiful than true topaz. Most of it is variety of amethyst: that heat
has turned brown.
NOTE:
topaz / 'tэupжz;`topжz/ n (a)transparent yellow mineral 黄玉（矿
物）.
(b) [C] semi-precious gem cut from this 黄玉;黄宝石.
39 The Salinity of Ocean Waters
If the salinity of ocean waters is analyzed, it is found to vary only
slightly from place to place. Nevertheless, some of these small changes
are important. There are three basic processes that cause a change in
oceanic salinity. One of these is the subtraction of water from the
ocean by means of evaporation--- conversion of liquid water to water
vapor. In this manner the salinity is increased, since the salts stay
behind. If this is carried to the extreme, of course, white crystals of
salt would be left behind.
The opposite of evaporation is precipitation, such as rain, by which
water is added to the ocean. Here the ocean is being diluted so that the
salinity is decreased. This may occur in areas of high rainfall or in
coastal regions where rivers flow into the ocean. Thus salinity may be
increased by the subtraction of water by evaporation, or decreased by
the addition of fresh water by precipitation or runoff.
Normally, in tropical regions where the sun is very strong, the ocean
salinity is somewhat higher than it is in other parts of the world where
there is not as much evaporation. Similarly, in coastal regions where
rivers dilute the sea, salinity is somewhat lower than in other oceanic
areas.
A third process by which salinity may be altered is associated with the
FORMation and melting of sea ice. When sea water is frozen, the
dissolved materials are left behind. In this manner, sea water directly
materials are left behind. In this manner, sea water directly beneath
freshlyFORMed sea ice has a higher salinity than it did before the ice
appeared. Of course, when this ice melts, it will tend to decrease the
salinity of the surrounding water.
In the Weddell Sea Antarctica, the densest water in the oceans isFORMed
as a result of this freezing process, which increases the salinity of
cold water. This heavy water sinks and is found in the deeper portions
of the oceans of the world.
NOTE：
salinity / sэ'linэti;sэ`linэti/
nthe high salinity of sea water 海水的高含盐量.
-à>>saline / 'seilain;US -li:n;`selin/
1.adj [attrib 作定语] (fml 文) containing salt;salty 含盐的;咸的:
* a saline lake 盐湖 * saline springs 盐泉
* saline solution, eg as used for gargling, storing contact lenses, etc
盐溶液（如用于漱喉、存放隐形眼镜等）.
2. n(medical 医) solution of salt and water 盐水.
40 Cohesion-tension Theory
Atmospheric pressure can support a column of water up to 10 meters high.
But plants can move water much higher;the sequoia tree can pump water
to its very top more than 100 meters above the ground. Until the end of
the nineteenth century, the movement of water in trees and other tall
plants was a mystery. Some botanists hypothesized that the living cells
of plants acted as pumps. But many experiments demonstrated that the
stems of plants in which all the cells are killed can still move water
to appreciable heights. Other explanations for the movement of water in
plants have been based on root pressure, a push on the water from the
roots at the bottom of the plant. But root pressure is not nearly great
enough to push water to the tops of tall trees. Furthermore, the
conifers, which are among the tallest trees, have unusually low root
pressures.
If water is not pumped to the top of a tall tree, and if it is not
pushed to the top of a tall tree, then we may ask: how does it get
there? According to the currently accepted cohesion-tension theory,
water is pulled there. The pull on a rising column of water in a plant
results from the evaporation of water at the top of the plant. As water
is lost from the surface of the leaves, a negative pressure, or tension,
is created. The evaporated water is replaced by water moving from inside
the plant in unbroken columns that extend from the top of a plant to its
roots. The same forces that create surface tension in any sample of
water are responsible for the maintenance of these unbroken columns of
water. When water is confined in tubes of very small bore, the forces of
cohesion (the attraction between water molecules) are so great that the
strength of a column of water compares with the strength of a steel wire
of the same diameter. This cohesive strength permits columns of water to
be pulled to great heights without being broken.
41.American black bears
American black bears appear in a variety of colors despite their name.
In the eastern part of their range, most of these brown, red, or even
yellow coats. To the north, the black bear is actually gray or white in
color. Even in the same litter, both brown and black furred bears may be
born.
Black bears are the smallest of all American bears, ranging in length
from five to six feet, weighing from three hundred to five hundred
pounds Their eyes and ears are small and their eyesight and hearing are
not as good as their sense of smell.
Like all bears, the black bear is timid, clumsy, and rarely dangerous ,
but if attacked, most can climb trees and cover ground at great speeds.
When angry or frightened, it is aFORMidable enemy.
Black bears feed on leaves, herbs. Fruit, berries, insects, fish, and
even larger animals. One of the most interesting characteristics of
bears, including the black bear, is their winter sleep. Unlike
squirrels, woodchucks, and many other woodland animals, bears do not
actually hibernate. Although the bear does not during the winter moths,
sustaining itself from body fat, its temperature remains almost normal,
and it breathes regularly four or five times per minute.
Most black bears live alone, except during mating season. They prefer to
live in caves, hollow logs, or dense thickets. A little of one to four
cubs is born in January or February after a gestation period of six to
nine months, and they remain with their mother until they are fully
grown or about one and a half years old. Black bears can live as long as
thirty years in the wild , and even longer in game preserves set aside
for them.
42.Coal-fired power plants
The invention of the incandescent light bulb by Thomas A. Edison in 1879
created a demand for a cheap, readily available fuel with which to
generate large amounts of electric power. Coal seemed to fit the bill,
and it fueled the earliest power stations. (which were set up at the end
of the nineteenth century by Edison himself). As more power plants were
constructed throughout the country, the reliance on coal increased
throughout the country, the reliance on coal increased. Since the First
World War, coal-fired power plants had a combined in the United States
each year. In 1986 such plants had a combined generating capacity of
289,000 megawatts and consumed 83 percent of the nearly 900 million tons
of coal mined in the country that year. Given the uncertainty in the
future growth of the nearly 900 million tons of coal mined in the
country that year. Given the uncertainty in the future growth of nuclear
power and in the supply of oil and natural gas, coal-fired power plants
could well provide up to 70 percent of the electric power in the United
States by the end of the century.
Yet, in spite of the fact that coal has long been a source of
electricity and may remain on for many years(coal represents about 80
percent of United States fossil-fuel reserves), it has actually never
been the most desirable fossil fuel for power plants. Coal contains less
energy per unit of weight than weight than natural gas or oil;it is
difficult to transport, and it is associated with a host of
environmental issues, among them acid rain. Since the late 1960’s
problems of emission control and waste disposal have sharply reduced the
appeal of coal-fired power plants. The cost of ameliorating these
environment problems along with the rising cost of building a facility
as large and complex as a coal-fired power plant, have also made such
plants less attractive from a purely economic perspective.
Changes in the technological base of coal-fired power plants could
restore their attractiveness, however. Whereas some of these changes are
intended mainly to increase the productivity of existing plants,
completely new technologies for burning coal cleanly are also being
developed.
43.Statistics
There were two widely divergent influences on the early development of
statistical methods. Statistics had a mother who was dedicated to
keeping orderly records of government units (states and statistics come
from the same Latin root status) and a gentlemanly gambling father who
relied on mathematics to increase his skill at playing the odds in games
of chance. The influence of the mother on the offspring, statistics, is
represented by counting, measuring, describing, tabulating, ordering,
and the taking of censuses-all of which led to modern descriptive
statistics. From the influence of the father came modern inferential
statistics, which is based squarely on theories of probability.
Describing collections involves tabulating, depicting and describing
collections of data. These data may be quantitative such as measures of
height, intelligence or grade level------variables that are
characterized by an underlying continuum---or the data may represent
qualitative variables, such as sex, college major or personality type.
Large masses of data must generally undergo a process of summarization
or reduction before they are comprehensible. Descriptive statistics is a
tool for describing or summarizing or reducing to comprehensibleFORM
the properties of an otherwise unwieldy mass of data.
Inferential statistics is aFORMalized body of methods for solving
another class of problems that present great of problems
characteristically involves attempts to make predictions using a sample
of observations. For example, a school superintendent wishes to
determine the proportion of children in a large school system who come
to school without breakfast, have been vaccinated for flu, or whatever.
Having a little knowledge of statistics, the superintendent would know
that it is unnecessary and inefficient to question each child: the
proportion for the sample of as few as 100 children. Thus , the purpose
of inferential statistics is to predict or estimate characteristics of a
population from a knowledge of the characteristics of only a sample of
the population.
44.Obtaining Fresh water from icebergs
The concept of obtaining fresh water from icebergs that are towed to
populated areas and arid regions of the world was once treated as a joke
more appropriate to cartoons than real life. But now it is being
considered quite seriously by many nations, especially since scientists
have warned that the human race will outgrow its fresh water supply
faster than it runs out of food.
Glaciers are a possible source of fresh water that has been overlooked
until recently. Three-quarters of the Earth’s fresh water supply is
still tied up in glacial ice, a reservoir of untapped fresh water so
immense that it could sustain all the rivers of the world for 1,000
years. Floating on the oceans every year are 7,659 trillion metric tons
of ice encased in 10000 icebergs that break away from the polar ice
caps, more than ninety percent of them from Antarctica.
Huge glaciers that stretch over the shallow continental shelf give birth
to icebergs throughout the year. Icebergs are not like sea ice, which is
FORMed when the sea itself freezes, rather, they areFORMed entirely on
land, breaking off when glaciers spread over the sea. As they drift away
from the polar region, icebergs sometimes move mysteriously in a
direction opposite to the wind, pulled by subsurface currents. Because
they melt more slowly than smaller pieces of ice, icebergs have been
known to drift as far north as 35 degrees south of the equator in the
Atlantic Ocean. To corral them and steer them to parts of the world
where they are needed would not be too difficult.
The difficulty arises in other technical matters, such as the prevention
of rapid melting in warmer climates and the funneling of fresh water to
shore in great volume. But even if the icebergs lost half of their
volume in towing, the water they could provide would be far cheaper than
that produced by desalinization, or removing salt from water.
45.The source of Energy
A summary of the physical and chemical nature of life must begin, not on
the Earth, but in the Sun;in fact, at the Sun’s very center. It is
here that is to be found the source of the energy that the Sun
constantly pours out into space as light and heat. This energy is
librated at the center of the Sun as billions upon billions of nuclei of
hydrogen atoms collide with each other and fuse together toFORM nuclei
of helium, and in doing so, release some of the energy that is stored in
the nuclei of atoms. The output of light and heat of the Sun requires
that some 600 million tons of hydrogen be converted into helium in the
Sun every second. This the Sun has been doing for several thousands of
millions of year.
The nuclear energy is released at the Sun’s center as high-energy gamma
radiation, aFORM of electromagnetic radiation like light and radio
waves, only of very much shorter wavelength. This gamma radiation is
absorbed by atoms inside the Sun to be reemitted at slightly longer
wavelengths. This radiation , in its turn is absorbed and reemitted. As
the energy filters through the layers of the solar interior, it passes
through the X-ray part of the spectrum eventually becoming light. At
this stage, it has reached what we call the solar surface, and can
escape into space without being absorbed further by solar atoms. A very
small fraction of the Sun’s light and heat is emitted in such
directions that after passing unhindered through interplanetary space,
it hits the Earth.
46.Vision
Human vision like that of other primates has evolved in an arboreal
environment. In the dense complex world of a tropical forest, it is more
important to see well that to develop an acute sense of smell. In the
course of evolution members of the primate line have acquired large eyes
while the snout has shrunk to give the eye an unimpeded view. Of mammals
only humans and some primates enjoy color vision. The red flag is black
to the bull. Horses live in a monochrome world .light visible to human
eyes however occupies only a very narrow band in the whole
electromagnetic spectrum. Ultraviolet rays are invisible to humans
though ants and honeybees are sensitive to them. Humans though ants and
honeybees are sensitive to them. Humans have no direct perception of
infrared rays unlike the rattlesnake which has receptors tuned into
wavelengths longer than 0.7 micron. The world would look eerily
different if human eyes were sensitive to infrared radiation. Then
instead of the darkness of night, we would be able to move easily in a
strange shadowless world where objects glowed with varying degrees of
intensity. But human eyes excel in other ways. They are in fact
remarkably discerning in color gradation. The color sensitivity of
normal human vision is rarely surpassed even by sophisticated technical
devices.
47 Folk Cultures
A folk culture is a small isolated, cohesive, conservative, nearly self-
sufficient group that is homogeneous in custom and race with a strong
family or clan structure and highly developed rituals. Order is
maintained through sanctions based in the religion or family and
interpersonal. Relationships are strong. Tradition is paramount, and
change comes infrequently and slowly. There is relatively little
division of labor into specialized duties. Rather, each person is
expected to perFORM a great variety of tasks, though duties may differ
between the sexes. Most goods are handmade and subsistence economy
prevails. Individualism is weakly developed in folk cultures as are
social classes. Unaltered folk cultures no longer exist in
industrialized countries such as the United States and Canada. Perhaps
the nearest modern equivalent in Anglo America is the Amish, a German
American farming sect that largely renounces the products and labor
saving devices of
the industrial age. In Amish areas, horse drawn buggies still serve as a
local transportation device and the faithful are not permitted to own
automobiles. The Amish’s central religious concept of Demut
“humility”, clearly reflects the weakness of individualism and social
class so typical of folk cultures and there is a corresponding strength
of Amish group identity. Rarely do the Amish marry outside their sect.
The religion, a variety of the Mennonite faith, provides the principal
mechanism for maintaining order.
By contrast a popular culture is a large heterogeneous group often
highly individualistic and a pronounced many specialized professions.
Secular institutions of control such as the police and army take the
place of religion and family in maintaining order, and a money-based
economy prevails. Because of these contrasts, “popular” may be viewed
as clearly different from “folk”. The popular is replacing the folk in
industrialized countries and in many developing nations. Folk-made
objects give way to their popular equivalent, usually because the
popular item is more quickly or cheaply produced, is easier or time
saving to use or leads more prestige to the owner.

48 Bacteria
Bacteria are extremely small living things. While we measure our own
sizes in inches or centimeters, bacterial size is measured in microns.
One micron is a thousandth of a millimeter: a pinhead is about a
millimeter across. Rod-shaped bacteria are usually from two to four
microns long, while rounded ones are generally one micron in diameter.
Thus if you enlarged a rounded bacterium a thousand times, it would be
just about the size of a pinhead. An adult human magnified by the same
amount would be over a mile(1.6 kilometer) tall.
Even with an ordinary microscope, you must look closely to see bacteria.
Using a magnification of 100 times, one finds that bacteria are barely
visible as tiny rods or dots. One cannot make out anything of their
structure. Using special stains, one can see that some bacteria have
attached to them wavy-looking “hairs” called flagella. Others have
only one flagellum. The flagella rotate, pushing the bacteria through
the water. Many bacteria lack flagella and cannot move about by their
own power, while others can glide along over surfaces by some little-
understood mechanism.
From the bacteria point of view, the world is a very different place
from what it is to humans. To a bacterium water is as thick as molasses
is to us. Bacteria are so small that they are influenced by the
movements of the chemical molecules around them. Bacteria under the
microscope, even those with no flagella, often bounce about in the
water. This is because they collide with the watery molecules and are
pushed this way and that. Molecules move so rapidly that within a tenth
of a second the molecules around a bacteria have all been replaced by
new ones;even bacteria without flagella are thus constantly exposed to
a changing environment.
49 Sleep
Sleet is part of a person’s daily activity cycle. There are several
different stages of sleep, and they too occur in cycles. If you are an
average sleeper, your sleep cycle is as follows. When you fist drift off
into slumber, your eyes will roll about a bit, you temperature will drop
slightly, your muscles will relax, and your breathing well slow and
become quite regular. Your brain waves slow and become quite regular.
Your brain waves slow down a bit too, with the alpha rhythm of rather
fast waves 1 sleep. For the next half hour or so, as you relax more and
more, you will drift down through stage 2 and stage 3 sleep. The lower
your stage of sleep. slower your brain waves will be. Then about 40to 69
minutes after you lose consciousness you will have reached the deepest
sleep of all. Your brain will show the large slow waves that are known
as the delta rhythm. This is stage 4 sleep.
You do not remain at this deep fourth stage all night long, but instead
about 80 minutes after you fall into slumber, your brain activity level
will increase again slightly. The delta rhythm will disappear, to be
replaced by the activity pattern of brain waves. Your eyes will begin to
dart around under your closed eyelids as if you were looking at
something occurring in front of you. This period of rapid eye movement
lasts for some 8 to 15 minutes and is called REM sleep. It is during REM
sleep period, your body will soon relax again, your breathing will slip
gently back from stage 1 to stage 4 sleep----only to rise once again to
the surface of near consciousness some 80 minutes later.
50. Cells and Temperature 　
Cells cannot remain alive outside certain limits of temperature and much
narrower limits mark the boundaries of effective functioning. Enzyme
systems of mammals and birds are most efficient only within a narrow
range around 37C;a departure of a few degrees from thisvalue seriously
impairs their functioning. Even though cells can survive wider
fluctuations the integrated actions of bodily systems are impaired.
Other animals have a wider tolerance for changes of bodily temperature.
For centuries it has been recognized that mammals and birds differ from
other animals in the way they regulate body temperature. Ways of
characterizing the difference have become more accurate and meaningful
over time, but popular terminology still reflects the old division into
“warm-blooded” and “cold-blooded” species;warm-blooded included
mammals and birds whereas all other creatures were considered cold-
blooded. As more species were studied, it became evident that this
classification was inadequate. A fence lizard or a desert iguana-each
cold-blooded----usually has a body temperature only a degree or two
below that of humans and so is not cold. Therefore the next distinction
was made between animals that maintain a constant body temperature,
called home0therms, and those whose body temperature varies with their
environments, called poikilotherms. But this classification also proved
inadequate, because among mammals there are many that vary their body
temperatures during hibernation. Furthermore, many invertebrates that
live in the depths of the ocean never experience change in the depths of
the ocean never experience change in the chill of the deep water, and
their body temperatures remain constant.